was walking slowly along a track that had
been cleared in the wood, with Ilyin, a lawyer who was spending the
summer in the neighbourhood. It was five o'clock in the evening.
Feathery-white masses of cloud stood overhead; patches of bright
blue sky peeped out between them. The clouds stood motionless, as
though they had caught in the tops of the tall old pine-trees. It
was still and sultry.

Farther on, the track was crossed by a low railway embankment on
which a sentinel with a gun was for some reason pacing up and down.
Just beyond the embankment there was a large white church with six
domes and a rusty roof.

"I did not expect to meet you here," said Sofya Petrovna, looking
at the ground and prodding at the last year's leaves with the tip
of her parasol, "and now I am glad we have met. I want to speak to
you seriously and once for all. I beg you, Ivan Mihalovitch, if you
really love and respect me, please make an end of this pursuit of
me! You follow me about like a shadow, you are continually looking
at me not in a nice way, making love to me, writing me strange
letters, and . . . and I don't know where it's all going to end!
Why, what can come of it?"

Ilyin said nothing. Sofya Petrovna walked on a few steps and
continued:

"And this complete transformation in you all came about in the
course of two or three weeks, after five years' friendship. I don't
know you, Ivan Mihalovitch!"

Sofya Petrovna stole a glance at her companion. Screwing up his
eyes, he was looking intently at the fluffy clouds. His face looked
angry, ill-humoured, and preoccupied, like that of a man in pain
forced to listen to nonsense.

"I wonder you don't see it yourself," Madame Lubyantsev went on,
shrugging her shoulders. "You ought to realize that it's not a very
nice part you are playing. I am married; I love and respect my
husband. . . . I have a daughter . . . . Can you think all that
means nothing? Besides, as an old friend you know my attitude to
family life and my views as to the sanctity of marriage."

Ilyin cleared his throat angrily and heaved a sigh.

"Sanctity of marriage . . ." he muttered. "Oh, Lord!"

"Yes, yes. . . . I love my husband, I respect him; and in any case
I value the peace of my home. I would rather let myself be killed
than be a cause of unhappiness to Andrey and his daughter. . . .
And I beg you, Ivan Mihalovitch, for God's sake, leave me in peace!
Let us be as good, true friends as we used to be, and